


a theory about us and the universe

by explosivesky



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Import from Tumblr, anyway they were dating all throughout series 9, hello i am here, post magician's apprentice and pre-hell bent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-06 23:48:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12828732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/explosivesky/pseuds/explosivesky
Summary: “Call it a paradigm shift,” he responds finally, low and delicate. “The Cybermen and their upgrades, the Time Lords and their time machines; you, alive and standing in front of me.” He stops being able to separate idealism and reality, allowing himself a world in which time watches the way he touches her and thinks, finally, you’ve done enough.





	a theory about us and the universe

**Author's Note:**

> based off [this theory](http://twelveclara.tumblr.com/post/135161419394) of mine.

Call it a paradigm shift, she says. Galileo and his moons, Vesalius and anatomy, Lorenz’s chaos theory. Fundamental changes in previously unexplored or accepted scientific systems.  
  
The Doctor smiles at her explanation, fingers working a metallic cord into a wire cover. He says, Oh, is that what we’re calling it? A scientific revolution?  
  
They don’t touch. He shifts his head, neck at an odd angle, catching her eye. The space they’re in is smaller than it used to be. The fire crackles. There’s this dance - she can’t remember the name of it now - but it relies on the two participants never even brushing hands, held an inch away, delicate and yet electric.  
  
The energy is amplified, she tries to tell him. Because they can’t touch. The air becomes a thunderstorm.  
  
His eyebrows are furrowed. He connects the wire to a port, fiddling. He asks, Why?  
  
Well, she says, doesn’t not being able to have someone only make you want them more?  
  
\--  
  
“You’re thinking about him again,” a voice says from the doorway.  
  
Clara doesn’t move her head from the arm of the couch, staring up, up, and up at the unending, towering shelves of books. Half of them are journals. Hers, Ashildr’s. There are too many memories between them.  
  
It isn’t a groundbreaking observation, and so she doesn’t respond.  
  
Ashildr’s fingers slide against the cool metal as she enters the library. She says, “You should write it down.”  
  
Clara’s lips turn into a careless smile. Her hair spirals over the edge, like smoke vanishing towards the floor. The fire crackles. It’s always crackling. It never dies, just like everything else aboard this TARDIS. Unending. Boundless.  
  
“There are some things,” she says, stare unmoving, “that I can’t put into words.”  
  
Ashildr walks over, kneeling next to Clara, her hand touching Clara’s shoulder gently.  
  
“You don’t want to forget,” she replies. Wise. She’s lost it all. She has nothing but pages, time and space, and the sometimes inconsolable woman in front of her. She doesn’t even remember most of the people she’s lost. She isn’t sure who has it worse, between them.  
  
“There are _also_ some things,” Clara says deliberately, “that I know I’ll never forget.”  
  
Ashildr says nothing else. Clara’s eyelids flutter closed. She dreams. She can’t sleep, but it doesn’t stop her.  
  
\--  
  
They’re in a library too similar to the one she’s in now, and they’re too close.  
  
They don’t start out that way, of course, but there are times when they’re alone and all the space they’re in becomes suddenly smaller than it used to be; an invisible hand curving around their spines, pushing them together. She’s almost pressed against his side. The TARDIS reconfiguring the architecture, maybe, he says. I don’t know. I can’t explain it.  
  
I can, she’ll always tell him, I can explain it. Her mouth is in a curl, her eyes sparkling. There’s this famous dance - it has a name, she thinks, a certain flirtation - and they’re not supposed to touch; it’s improper. It ruins the subtlety and beauty and longing. The atmosphere needs to be charged.  
  
He asks, Tell me. It sounds like a command. He hates not knowing.  
  
She explains, Occam’s Razor. The simplest answer is often the right answer. Come on, you’re a clever man. You can do this.  
  
He stares down, his neck at an awkward crick, meeting her eyes. His fingertips tinker with broken wires he’s been reconnecting on the tabletop. The fire crackles. The fire is always crackling.  
  
So, science, he says. I’m thinking--  
  
Yes?  
  
Polarization. Magnetism. Gravity. He says the words slowly. Forces that are drawn to each other, or draw objects to them, no matter what stands in their way.  
  
Call it a paradigm shift, she says. Darwin’s finches, Mendell’s peas, Newton’s laws of motion. I’m only human.  
  
I understand. His voice is soft. Is that what we’re calling this? A scientific revolution?  
  
She smiles. She sees his breath catch, and the world is over to him.  
  
She says candidly, Well, I can’t think of another name; can you?  
  
\--  
  
In the beginning, she does nothing but write. She spends days pouring everything into ink, bleeding herself dry. She’s frozen - she doesn’t need rest or sustenance or oxygen - and so she writes. She was an English teacher.  
  
Ashildr doesn’t ask, but Clara says, “You can read them if you get bored,” with a falsely sincere grin and a wink. She’s trying. It isn’t easy. “They’ll put you right to sleep.”  
  
Ashildr laughs, playing along. But there are leather-bound novels that Clara hides from her, stuffed far in the backs of drawers, out of sight. She can guess what they’re about. She catches Clara stowing a few of them away one evening.  
  
Clara purses her lips. “Please don’t read these,” she says, but she knows it’s futile.  
  
After all, it’s a request she sure as hell would’ve ignored.  
  
\--  
  
They’re in a library exactly like the one she’s in now, and the room is smaller than it’s ever been.  
  
Half the shelves are disappearing, fading high into the ceiling, shrouded in a grey mist. They’re too close. The room is still there. It’s being cloaked, he explains, giving the TARDIS an annoyed glance. I don’t know why.  
  
I do, she says, I know why. Her lips are tilting; her eyes are bright. There’s a dance, she thinks, and they’re not supposed to touch, but she can’t remember the name of it and she’s so tired of dancing, anyway. The fire crackles. He’s stripping a metal cord of its wire, like unraveling a spool. His fingers are deft and fluid.  
  
He doesn’t get the concept. Why? He asks her two different things. Why wouldn’t they touch?  
  
Call it a paradigm shift, she says. Einstein’s theories of relativity, Lavoisier’s theory of oxygen combustion, Copernicus’ theory of heliocentrism. You’re a clever man.  
  
His mouth quirks. He turns to face her. Is that what we’re calling this? He asks. A scientific revolution?  
  
Wrong question, she says. Her palm presses flat against the wooden table, hand an inch from his. He’s staring down at her, his neck at an odd angle. The room is small, forcing him closer, the bookshelves descending over his head.  
  
He sees right through her. It’s your question, he says. Go on.  
  
Her breath is locked in her lungs. She’s as close to him as she can get, keeping space between them. She asks softly, Is that why we don’t we touch?  
  
He observes her carefully. He replies, Occam’s Razor. The simplest answer is often the right answer.  
  
So, science, she says. I’m thinking--  
  
Yes?  
  
Something to do with gravity, she says. Magnetism. Polarization.  
  
His head is drawing nearer to hers. Maybe she’s growing. She’s wearing heels and forgot. He’s bending down, an invisible hand curving his spine. The world is over to her.  
  
If you need a hint, he says, opposites attract. Think magnetic domains.  
  
She says, People aren’t magnets, and we aren't opposites.  
  
His smile shifts into a smirk. Very good, he says. Yes, some people are much harder to tear apart once they’ve been brought together.  
  
\--  
  
“Why don’t you just go _find_ him?” Ashildr prods, sitting on the floor and studying the manual section about chameleon circuits again - there are a lot of places they can’t exactly land looking like an American diner, which they always seem to revert to. “We could do it. I’m impressed he hasn’t found _us,_ to be quite honest.”  
  
Clara turns a knob and taps at a screen. “He doesn’t know what he’s looking for.”  
  
“Ah,” Ashildr says omnisciently. “That’s the problem, isn’t it?” She doesn’t even glance up. “Don’t bother lying, Clara. We’ve been together too long for you to lie.”  
  
“Doesn’t mean I can’t try,” Clara responds, pulling the lever and stalling them until they’re sorted. The TARDIS shudders to a halt. They’re floating somewhere in deep space, year 6079, and that's all she knows. She brushes her hands across the buttons lightly, and the look on her face is vulnerable, desolate, far-off. The TARDIS hums loudly, startling her.  
  
She pats the console after a second and says, “Sorry, dear, I’m sorry.” She throws a glance towards Ashildr, her grin not quite reaching her eyes.  
  
“It’s like you’re cheating on our TARDIS, you know,” Ashildr points out. “Every time you think about his.”  
  
“It was my home for a very long time,” Clara argues back, her sneakers scuffing against the floor. “You can’t blame me for missing it, sometimes.”  
  
Ashildr turns a page casually and says, “His TARDIS wasn’t your home.” She inspects a portion of wires underneath the console distractedly. “He was. And that’s what you miss.”  
  
Clara’s not nearly as ancient as Ashildr is, but she’s still been alive longer than she should’ve been. The patience should be there, she knows, but--  
  
She sighs, resigned, “Oh, fuck off.”  
  
Ashildr laughs loudly. At least _someone’s_ having fun, Clara thinks snidely; but the truth, to her, will always hurt.  
  
\--  
  
They’re in a library--  
  
She’s thinking about a dance she hates where the dancers aren’t allowed to touch, but she doesn’t know the name; it has something do with chemistry, maybe, unexplored desire. He’s twisting together metal strands of copper into a wire cover. The room is a box and the space around them is grey, dark fog, wet clouds before an electrical storm. Why? He asks. Why can’t they touch?  
  
Well, she says, doesn’t not being able to have someone only make you want them more?  
  
He stumbles over his own fingers, dropping the cord. His neck cricks at an awkward angle, turning to look at her; his hand falls near hers on the wooden tabletop. It’s your question, he answers finally. Go on.  
  
He’s too close to her. The room is small and the ceiling is collapsing in on them, the fire crackling; the fire is always crackling. The books are burning up. Her voice is soft. She says, Is that why we don’t touch?  
  
Call it a paradigm shift, he replies. The Silents and their hypnotic suggestion, the Daleks and their mercy, the Angels and their quantum lock. Fundamental changes to previously unexplored or accepted scientific systems. I’m not human.  
  
Is that what we’re calling this? She asks, and the space between them is a black hole. A scientific revolution?  
  
Their fingers brush. His head is drawing nearer, lofty and amused, his mouth in a careful half-smile. He says, Occam’s Razor. The simplest answer is often the right answer.  
  
So, science, she says. I’m thinking--  
  
You do too much of that--  
  
Magnetization, gravitation, polarization, she lists off. Unstoppable forces, drawing objects together.  
  
And what do they all have in common? He guides. If you need a hint, think magnetic domain. Opposites attract.  
  
We aren’t magnets, nor opposites, she says. And people are much harder to tear apart once they’ve been brought together.  
  
Her chest is aching; her muscles are sore and overused. She exhales, her eyes caught on his lips, hovering just above hers. The world is ending.  
  
He asks, Is something wrong?  
  
She shakes her head almost imperceptibly and says, Nothing, but I feel like I’ve been dancing.  
  
\--  
  
Clara’s writing at a desk tucked away in a quiet nook in her study - which looks an awful lot like the library, but then again, everything looks like the library, they have so many books - when Ashildr approaches from behind her and carefully sets a tan, leather-bound journal next to her arm. Clara halts, eyes slipping over to it, and drops her pen.  
  
Ashildr whispers, “I’m so sorry.” She means it, too, but Clara hasn’t glanced at her face, her stare still stuck on the diary. Ashildr drops to her knees, trying to get the woman to acknowledge her. “Clara, I’m so sorry.”  
  
Clara reaches out and touches the cover of the journal delicately, her lips parting. Tears prick at the corners of her eyes. “It’s okay,” she says, and it isn’t okay at all. “It’s fine.”  
  
“No, it isn’t.” She places a hand on Clara’s knee. “You asked me not to--”  
  
“I knew you would,” Clara interrupts, trying to push the moment away. “I would have.”  
  
“Still.”  
  
Her cheeks are wet. She’s supporting too much weight and it’s all spilling out. “It’s silly,” she whispers. “I had all the time in the world.”  
  
Ashildr says, “You still do. You have more time than you had before.”  
  
“It’s not the same,” Clara answers, and she’s right. She takes the book and presses it to her chest, her teeth cutting against her bottom lip. “I didn’t want you to know. You’d have treated me differently. Looked at me differently.”  
  
“Like how?”  
  
Clara glances to her, quick and away. She says, “Like _that._ ” The bitterness rises. “Like you feel _sorry_ for me.”  
  
“It’s not that,” Ashildr denies, her eyes averted to the floor. “I didn’t... _know_ ,” she tries to explain. “I knew the emotion was there, but I didn’t know you’d--”  
  
“Acted on it?” Clara smiles resentfully, vulnerable and unable to stop herself. She’s uncomfortably exposed. “Actions speak louder than words. I’m sure you’ve heard that phrase at least once in your immeasurably long life.”  
  
Ashildr repeats, “I’m sorry,” and the pressure from her hand is gone. She sits there, waiting for Clara to forgive her, or to finally, finally let it go. It takes a minute, or maybe it’s an hour, she doesn’t know, neither of them are the best at keeping time anymore, but--  
  
Clara asks, “How did you know? How did you know even _that_ much?”  
  
“I was there.” The statement is declarative and inarguable. Ashildr says softly, “Clara, you loved each other so consumingly that not even the universe could compete.” Clara’s not breathing. She doesn’t need to. “A prophecy - every prophecy - foretold great destruction born not of violence, but of love. The end of all things just to be together. I lived the length of almost the entirety of time, Clara, and I’ve never seen another love like that.”  
  
She stands and leaves, allowing Clara a moment of both wonderful peace and overwhelming loneliness, crying for everything she’s lost and everything she was able to have at all.  
  
She opens her journal.  
  
\--  
  
They’re in the library and it’s huge; she’s deciphering a book of poems written in Gallifreyan - he’d taught her some of the letters a few days ago, on an uncharacteristically quiet evening just after Christmas; she’d come down ill and needed rest - and he’s tinkering with various types of clocks he’d collected from all across the universe, pulling apart wires and wood, bolts and stone. He’s lost his coat - it’s hanging over the back of a chair by the fire - and his sleeves are rolled up. Maybe that’s what does it. She doesn’t know.  
  
He glances over at her, his mouth curling into a grin at the way she’s holding the book horizontally and angling her head, eyes squinting. She says, “I think I’ve got a line.”  
  
“Let’s hear it,” he answers, sonicing a battery.  
  
She clears her throat like she’s about to deliver a presentation. He holds back a grin. One of his hearts falls out of sync with the other, but he ignores it; it’s not unusual to be off-beat after she smiles, or laughs, or does almost anything, really--  
  
She quotes, “‘And when I speak of love, what I truly mean is: No number of hearts can contain the wonder of you _._ ’”  
  
He hesitates, but it’s so brief she can’t be sure it happened at all. “ _Sounds_ like poetry,” he says. He walks over and takes a peek at the text, studying it momentarily, tracing the lines of her pencil over the page where she’d been making marks. He’s careful not to invade her space. “Yes, you’re correct.”  
  
She shuts the book and says, “That’s enough for now. Took me forty minutes.”  
  
“Did it?” He asks mildly, returning to tinkering with his machine, or whatever the hell it is he’s doing. “You know what they say. Time flies when you’re having fun.”  
  
She laughs. He smiles in response. She slides her feet to the floor and finally lifts herself from the sofa; the fire is crackling, as it always is. _Time loop,_ he’d explained once. _The same wood burns itself through over and over._  
  
She approaches the table he’s working at and crosses her arms, examining all the bits and pieces. She says, “There’s this dance I’m thinking of, but I can’t remember the name of it. It’s driving me bonkers.” She continues when he doesn’t pry. “The dancers aren’t allowed to touch.”  
  
He furrows his eyebrows, perplexed, delicately curling a copper wire into a miniscule, perfect circle. “Why can’t they touch? Seems rather counter-intuitive for partner dancing, don’t you agree?”  
  
“Something to do with chemistry,” she waves away. “Encumbered desire, subtle longing. The atmosphere needs to be charged. Like an electrical storm. That’s not the point.”  
  
He scoffs. “Explain,” he says. “I don’t understand.”  
  
She asks, deliberately not looking at him, “Well, doesn’t not being able to have someone only make you want them more?” His body goes stiff at the question. She says, “You don’t have to answer that. It’s rhetorical.”  
  
He relaxes slightly, but his fingers stutter. He holds his sunglasses against a shard of some gold-like metal, shaping it. She’s not sure what he’s doing and she’s not paying much attention anyway - they’re on the verge of _that_ conversation, the one they almost-but-not-quite always have before one of them accidentally admits more than they mean to and retreats.  
  
He examines a tiny glass orb and can’t find a path moving beyond where they are now. He sets his tools down reluctantly and shifts his body towards her, hand supporting his weight against the tabletop. He says, “It’s your question. Go on, then.”  
  
She looks up at him from underneath her eyelashes, her teeth skidding over her bottom lip uncertainly. There are boundaries, but neither of them have ever dared to draw a line, as that would mean acknowledging that there’s a possibility of crossing it. But it’s been long enough. She asks softly, “Is that why we don’t touch?”  
  
He studies her, keeping his voice to himself, stumbling over his thoughts until he locates the right ones to turn into words. His eyes, combinations of cool colours and ice in oil paint, are gentle, adoring, warm. His neck is crooked at an odd angle, chin dropped and reserved.  
  
“Occam’s Razor,” he says, and her hand falls to the table, fingers splayed inches from his own. “The simplest answer is often the right answer. You’re a clever woman, Clara.”  
  
The way he says her name--  
  
“So, science,” she says, taking the smallest step towards him. The room feels closer, sinking in on them. Everything is fading away. “I’m thinking magnetism, gravitation, polarization.”  
  
He doesn’t confirm or deny, just keeps pushing. “And what does all that have in common?” He guides. “If you need a hint, focus on that first one.”  
  
“Unstoppable forces,” she interrupts. “Drawing objects to them, objects drawn to each other, no matter what stands in their way. Opposites attracting.” Her mouth tilts. She knows where he’s going with this. She knows him better than anything in the world. “But people aren’t magnets, Doctor, and we aren’t opposites.”  
  
“No,” he agrees quietly. “But some people are much harder to tear apart once they’ve been brought together.”  
  
He’s too close, his spine curving. The space between them is becoming a black hole, sucking them in. His motivation falters, but she grasps at it, unable to let go. They’ve wasted enough.  
  
“I’ve answered you,” she says, and commands, “Your turn. Answer me.”  
  
But he doesn’t, not at first; he just watches her, stare flickering between her eyes, dropping occasionally to her mouth. She fears for a minute that he’s remaining unconvinced, but his lips stiffen into a thinner line, and she can see the fabric of his shirt bumping against the pounding of his hearts.  
  
“Call it a paradigm shift,” he responds finally, low and delicate. “The Cybermen and their upgrades, the Time Lords and their time machines; you, alive and standing in front of me.” He pauses at the sound of her lungs, catching. “Fundamental changes to previously unexplored or accepted scientific systems.”  
  
“Is that what we’re calling this?” She asks lightly, hoping he doesn’t back down. “A scientific revolution?”  
  
“I can’t come up with a better term,” he says. “Can you? No. Don’t answer that. It’s rhetorical.”  
  
Her breath flutters, stalled in her throat. She murmurs, her stare stuck on his, “You’re saying things.”  
  
“I am.” Maybe he’s gone too far already. He can’t be sure. The room is caving in, the books rubbing their pages together, burning. “I tend to do that.”  
  
“Not like this.”  
  
He can’t escape her; he can’t even look away. He thinks the library has shrunk to only fit the two of them, possibly. She’s searching his face for a sign, but she knows--  
  
He says, “I wasn't sure if you wanted me to. If it were appropriate.”  
  
She drops her chin, gathering the nerve. She inhales slowly, and takes another step towards him, her hand lifting off the table, fingers carefully curling around the material of his shirt. She’s still staring at their feet, and he’s watching the top of her head, unable to do anything else. His arms have dropped to his sides. She knows. She only has to look up.  
  
The moment is poignant and heavy and so easily disruptable; neither of them count how long it lasts, until--  
  
He murmurs shakingly, “ _Clara._ ”  
  
She raises her head. She’s closer than she’s ever been.  
  
He seems startled at the fact that he’d said her name; he’s terrified and impatient and her grip is tighter, anchoring him in place. He won’t push her away. He won’t stop her. But he won’t cross the line they’ve never drawn first.  
  
She breathes out, “I can’t take it any longer,” and then she lifts herself onto her toes and his lips are already parted; she meets his eyes one last time before her gaze drops to his mouth and her eyelids flutter closed, and - _oh._  
  
Call it a paradigm shift. Galileo and his moons, Newton’s laws of motion, Einstein’s theories of relativity; fundamental changes to previously unexplored or accepted scientific systems. Everything alters. It’s a revolution. Disruptions of theorems and hypotheses and dark matter and grounding theologies, shattered in an instant.  
  
His hands have moved to her face, cupping her jaw, thumbs brushing just below her cheekbones - his fingers are long, he’s so much taller than her, somehow it’s never been more noticeable - and his lips are warm, softer than the rest of him, which is composed of angles and hard edges. He can’t stop himself. This is all her fault, anyway, and he’ll blame her later, when they’re tangled up in bed and her heart is beating against his own, spilling out of her.  
  
She falls back onto her heels. He doesn’t drop his hands. He repeats achingly, “ _Clara,_ ” and the world is over to them both.  
  
\--  
  
Clara finds Ashildr sitting underneath the new console a few days later, messing with a size filter; all of their tinkering with the system had resulted in an entire regeneration of the room, which now looks exactly like - _of course_ \- a library. Apparently the TARDIS had interpreted their vast collection of books as a preference rather than a necessity, and as such, their outer appearance had changed (and subsequently become stuck) to a small, hole-in-the-wall bookshop.  
  
Ashildr says, “I swear, if I can just get this _blasted_ wire to reverse its energy flow--”  
  
But Clara interrupts with, “I want to talk about it,” and the sunglasses clatter to the floor with the sudden twist of Ashildr’s head.  
  
Ashildr studies her, taking in her curled posture, the way she’s trying to make herself seem smaller than she is, eyes cast low, teeth digging into her bottom lip. She sighs. “Oh, Clara.”  
  
Tears automatically well in Clara’s eyes. She hates that voice. “Yeah,” she whispers miserably, and Ashildr is immediately in front of her, embracing her.  
  
“It’s okay,” Ashildr says. “Okay to be upset, I mean. You can cry.”  
  
“The sadness isn’t constant,” Clara says, finally releasing what’s been building up. “Most of the time, I’m fine, I can - I can be grateful that I was with him for as long as I was. But the rest--” She falters, trying to stop the tears from actually falling. “ _God,_ I miss--”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“You know,” Clara repeats, and there’s that bitter smile again. “You know - him wandering into our diner was...miraculous. But for a moment - just a split second - I thought about how being dead would’ve been less painful than the complete lack of recognition.”  
  
“For you,” Ashildr says.  
  
Clara agrees, “Yeah.” She wonders if that makes her too selfish for love, something that should be selfless, and then she thinks of everything he did for her - because of her - and realizes that love can be both. “For me.”  
  
“He wasn’t your life,” Ashildr says gently, “but he was everything else.”  
  
“Have you ever had that?” Clara asks desperately, needing to feel like she isn’t so alone, needing to know that someone else has experienced at least a _fraction_ of what she has.  
  
Ashildr turns away, her face half-obscured in shadows and her eyes troubled.  
  
“If I have,” she says, “I don’t remember it at all.”  
  
\--  
  
She falls back onto her heels. He doesn’t drop his hands. He repeats achingly, “ _Clara_ .”  
  
She shakes her head imperceptibly, keeping her eyelids shut. She murmurs, “No. Don’t. Don’t say anything. Just...” She breaks off. “ _Be_ here, with me.”  
  
“Always,” he says softly, enthralled. He couldn’t leave her if he tried, not that he ever would, and especially not now.  
  
“I don’t want to talk about this,” she says, still not looking at him. “I can’t. I can’t talk about it.”  
  
He says, “Okay.”  
  
He says, “So we won’t talk about it.”  
  
He tilts her head back up, and like he can no longer resist, he kisses her again. The library is burning down, the poems speaking themselves aloud. Stars have wormed their way into the room.  
  
She breaks away, and it’s so hard to see those eyes of his, consuming, knowing - her gaze drops to the table, to the bits and pieces, to--  
  
“What is that?” She asks, her hands dropping from where she’d been clutching at his shirt. Her face is awed.  
  
He’s suddenly unsure of himself, as though the meaning of the object has been irrevocably altered, which--  
  
He picks up the device, bringing it closer, holding it between them; and then, carefully, he clicks the top of his sonic sunglasses. It whirls to life. It’s a glass orb half-outlined in decorative plates of gold, reflecting fractals of light and pinpricks of burning energy, like there’s a trapped galaxy within it. Miniscule gears twist and turn inside, shifting the entire globe around and around in an endless cycle. She’s astounded, unable to look away.  
  
“It’s the universe as I see it,” he explains quietly, averting his gaze to the device and not her. “The rifts of time and space, fluctuating, shifting.” He pauses, but forces himself to continue. “It’s...for you.”  
  
Her eyes widen dramatically, the response wildly unexpected; her fingers tap against his wrist, curving around it. She’s afraid to touch the object. She says uncertainly, “Me?” He nods once, sharp and quick. She asks disbelievingly: “But _why_ ?”  
  
He confesses, “I’m giving you the entire universe, so you never get lost in it.”  
  
The library has vanished entirely. The starlight illuminates her face; the sun beams rays across her cheeks, rotating. She can’t react. He’s standing still, waiting, solar systems swirling around them.  
  
She takes his free hand in one of hers, interlacing their fingers, and her other hand slips around the back of his neck, dipping his head. She kisses him slowly, patiently, until she feels his hesitance fade, his mouth becoming bolder.  
  
She asks, “Do you trust me?”  
  
“With my life,” he answers unflinchingly.  
  
“Okay,” she exhales. “Okay, good. Because that’s - that’s what I want.”  
  
“Metaphorically, I’d hope,” he says, lips crooked.  
  
She laughs. “Yes,” she agrees. “Metaphorically.”  
  
“Well,” he says, slipping into seriousness again, letting his gaze drop once more, “I can’t simply _give_ it to you, you know. I’d need something in exchange.” His voice wavers.  
  
She smiles wide, a dimple showing. She knows how to interpret him. She knows what he’s asking her for.  
  
She says, “Oh, I think we can arrange that,” and then they’re left standing there as the universe gathers around them, stars blinking in a silent applause.  
  
\--  
  
They’re chasing some undisclosed alien life force out of Oxford Street Station that keeps teleporting out people who try to enter the Central line without enough fare on their Oyster cards, and subsequently stealing parts of their bodies that are worth approximately the same amount on their foreign black market. Groups of tourists show up missing patches of skin, hair, nails - the unlucky ones who’ve traveled from Zones 4 and 5 sometimes lose eyes, fingers, toes, and lesser organs. Ashildr has managed to close off the exits, which the Londoners grumble about but don’t question - something’s _always_ stalled on the Central line.  
  
Clara says, “Just need to link to their transmat system, and…” She pauses. “Hang on. Someone else is - someone’s interfering. The signal’s scrambled.”  
  
Ashildr glances down the tunnel. “There’s another exit,” she says. “It’s closed down, but maybe they’re fighting back, got wind of our plan. I’ll check it out.” She trudges off.  
  
Around the curve of the bend, she spots a tall black boy standing near the turnstiles, fiddling with the tap system. There’s a strange sort of ringing sound echoing off the walls. She shouts, “Oi, you, what d’you think you’re doing--”  
  
He spins around, clearly startled, but when he sees her his jaw drops. The reaction forces her to hesitate. She’s seen that look before. It’s the expression of someone who never thought they’d run into her again, and her being unable to remember who they are, anyway.  
  
He breathes out, “Oh. My God.”  
  
She feels her body stiffening, defensive. She asks, “Do you know me?”  
  
“Do I--” He blinks owlishly. “Yeah, I bloody well know you.”  
  
She feels a stab of regret. She hopes he wasn’t someone important to her. “I’m sorry,” she finds herself apologizing. “But I can’t recall you, and you’re in the middle of something very, very dangerous, and I’m going to have to ask you to get the hell out of here.”  
  
It seems to snap him out of his daze. He says cautiously, “You’re Ashildr. Or Me, or whatever. Aren’t you?”  
  
“Sure.” She goes by both; Clara never broke the habit. It’s sort of endearing, really. A thought strikes her. “Wait. Where have you heard that name?”  
  
“Oh my God,” the boy repeats again, ignoring the question. “You’re here trying to stop this too, aren’t you? And you’re not alone, right?” His voice grows more excitable, face lighting up with what she can only describe as hope.  
  
She really isn’t sure what to make of this whole situation, but she isn’t getting any bad vibes from the boy and she has a pretty good judge of character. She replies carefully, “Yes, we’re here to help,” answering both of his questions at once.  
  
The boy tilts his head, like he’s straining to listen to something, and she notices the circuitry decorating his skull - she recognizes these patterns, it’s Cyberman technology - and he says, grinning, “Already taken care of.” His smile blows wide. “Fuckin’ perfect timing.”  
  
“What do you mean?” She asks, taken aback. Who _is_ this kid? “What happened to you?”  
  
“He means,” a voice calls out drolly from a platform to the left, “that someone else - probably someone extraordinarily clever, I’d assume - beat you to it.”  
  
The Doctor wanders out of an emergency exit tunnel, gloating, and he looks like he’s always looked; his hair is wild and his velvet coat is buttoned over a white-collared shirt. The moment he catches sight of her, he stops dead in his tracks, and his eyes tell her all she needs to know.  
  
The boy says, “I recognized her from all those photos you have. And she’s with--”  
  
The Doctor interrupts, “I have to hear it from her.” He has to be certain. Time travel - he’s processing it all in his head, just as she is - are they out of order or has a similar amount of time passed for each of them since Gallifrey? Since the diner? Since--  
  
He’s waiting, body leaning towards her like he’s about to sprint. She weighs the pros and cons, but in the end she pictures Clara, sobbing in her arms, and the decision is made for her.  
  
She gives him one subtle nod, and he takes off running, footsteps ricocheting like a heartbeat.  
  
\--  
  
It doesn’t happen. Not at first.  
  
He takes some coaxing, but he’s never been able to refuse her, anyway; she tugs on his hand, leading him to her room. He’s been in it before, sure, but never under a circumstance like this. His palms are too warm, her smile is too gentle, and they both think the other is too beautiful.  
  
He says, “Clara.” It’s the only word he knows. She places a finger against his lips.  
  
“I don’t want to talk,” she says again, and she reaches for the first button on her dress. “There’s been enough talking. It’s all we’ve done.”  
  
He can’t argue with her there, and so he doesn’t; he just watches as she slips the dress over her head, and then her hands find the buttons on his own shirt, undoing them one by one - her teeth skid across her bottom lip, pulling it halfway into her mouth, and she’s nervous and he finds himself thinking _mesmerizing, glorious, unfathomable_ \- and her palms are flat on his bare shoulders, her lips are on his, her body tightly wound against his own. He finally raises his hands to her lower back, fingers splayed, and she’s so _small_ \- somehow he never noticed it the way he’s noticing it now - he wants to protect her, to keep her right where she is for the rest of time, her blood burning in her veins and her mouth curling.  
  
She presses him back against the mattress - of course she’s in control - with her thighs on either side of his hips, and he can’t hold back anymore. There’s no reason, no point in denying this. He can see it all. It would have happened anyway.  
  
He lightly touches his lips to the insides of her wrists, the creases of her elbows, the lines of her collarbone, the crook of her neck. She trails her fingertips along his spine, his shoulder blades, his ribcage. He’s softer than he looks, and his bones fit comfortably underneath his skin rather than jutting out the way she’d always pictured. He’s more muscular, too, surprisingly, but he’s careful when he touches her, and he’s building her up so painstakingly slowly - _please,_ she begs breathlessly, nails digging into his back, _please, Doctor, please_ \- and she hates the way he judges time, so differently than her, so dependent on the tune of her voice and the ache of her hips and her head, thrown back, throat exposed, gasping. _Oh_ , he wants to tell her, _oh, I’ve never felt someone so_ alive.  
  
“Stay with me,” she murmurs after, her heart pouring out of her, and for once, he doesn’t want to run.  
  
\--  
  
She’s studying the turnstile when the footsteps approach behind her, and she’s too distracted to notice how heavy they sound, and how quick. She begins to say, “The transmat’s already been disabled--” and when she turns around to finish her sentence, he’s standing in front of her, his face so open and vulnerable that he looks about twenty years younger.  
  
He whispers devastatingly, “ _Clara._ ”  
  
She processes these three things at once: he’s said her name, meaning he’s figured out who she is; he obviously ran into Ashildr, and realized Clara was there, too, so their timestreams are likely synced; and he’s probably already taken care of the threat they came here to disarm, leaving her free to run away.  
  
Which is exactly what she does.  
  
\--  
  
A paradigm shift. He’d been right. There’s no coming back.  
  
But it doesn’t matter because she doesn’t want to; she grows too used to having him next to her, reaching out and finding his hand, finding his lips, drawing him towards her. Everything she owns somehow finds its way into the TARDIS until she’s essentially moved in, and she rarely leaves - sometimes she goes weeks, months at a time without seeing her flat - and she watches her definition of _home_ alter and change until it becomes something else entirely, until all she can picture is his quiet smile and the way his fingers curl around her hips, his mouth against her neck.  
  
He falls into it, too, because there’s no other option, and there never has been. He finds himself thinking dangerous ideas about _forever_ and _eternity_ \- which, you know, aren’t actual measurements of time, but on nice days, he looks at her and she’s so unbearably beautiful, her hair spilling across his lap, her eyelids closed, lips in a gentle curve - that he stops being able to separate idealism and reality, allowing himself a world in which time watches the way he touches her and thinks, _finally, you’ve done enough._  
  
Sometimes they go too far. One of them says too much. _You’ve made yourself essential to me. If you love me in any way, you’ll come back._ His head in his hands, palms over his eyes, her voice fracturing his skull. I’ll come back for you, he says, I swear, and everyone in the room knows exactly what’s just been said.  
  
They don’t talk about it, after, but the way she kisses him is careless, furious, brutal. Her words echo is his head. _You do not leave me._  
  
They’ve both realized that neither of them ever intend to live without the other, and it’s something they probably _should_ talk about, but they add it to a list of _tomorrow, someday, in the future,_ and by the time the conversation is actually necessary, it’s already too late and he has more important things to tell her.  
  
 _Stay with me._  
  
She doesn’t.  
  
\--  
  
He follows her, of course he does. He hasn’t spent the past however-many years searching for her to let her get away from him now.  
  
Her hair swings behind her as she flies up the stairs and onto the street; he nearly loses her in the crowd - which is no doubt what she’s hoping for - but he catches a glimpse of her looking back, and he could never forget her face. Not again. Not anymore.  
  
She enters an old, worn-down bookshop, but doesn’t shut the door behind her. Maybe it’s intentional, maybe she’s panicking. Maybe it’s both. He runs in after her, and the bell chimes, and instantly he knows he’s in a TARDIS. _Hers._  
  
She’s standing with her back to him, one hand on the corner of a bookshelf, the other covering her mouth, and his steps falter. He briefly grabs hold of his screwdriver and sonics the door locked; she doesn’t turn around. They’re stuck at a standstill.  
  
His voice finally crawls out of his throat. He says, “ _Clara._ ”  
  
He says, “ _Please,_ look at me.”  
  
She draws in a gasp - out of habit, because she doesn’t breathe, anymore - and slowly, very slowly, she shifts to face him, and he’s left speechless for an entirely different reason.  
  
He takes a step closer, eyes wide in wonder, awe; he clenches his hands into fists, resisting the urge to reach for her. She doesn’t back away. She watches him approach, caught in the same hope.  
  
She whispers unsteadily, “Why did you follow me?”  
  
It’s like the books are whispering, egging them on. He repeats bewilderedly, “Why?” As if he doesn’t understand the question. And then he says, “I’ve been looking for you.”  
  
“For how long?” She asks. He’s still moving towards her, cautiously, like she might bolt again at any second.  
  
He stops a few feet from her, studying her, and his gaze drops to places it shouldn’t, too intimate and familiar: her lips, her neck, her fingers. He says, “Feels like an eternity.” The silence shudders around them. “Clara.”  
  
The way he murmurs her name is too _right_ ; it’s the same inflection he used to say it with, low and tender, sounding like a lover instead of a stranger. Maybe there are some things that never change, things not influenced by memory.  
  
He stretches out an arm, palm up, fingers spread. She knows what he’s asking for.  
  
She extends her hand slowly, because if he begs _please_ one more time, she’s going to give him everything.  
  
His skin brushes hers, and she can’t stop herself from shivering, her bottom lip trembling; it’s been so long since he’s touched her but she can feel his body hovering over hers like it was only moments ago; he presses two of his fingertips to the inside of her wrist delicately, and their eyes meet.  
  
He breathes out, “You don’t have a heartbeat.”  
  
His touch alone is enough to destroy any resolve she had left. She places both her hands against the front of his coat after a split second of hesitation, fingers curling around the lapels, an unforgotten habit. This is terrible, this is dangerous, she’s never going to want to let him go again. His grip shifts to her elbows, allowing her to shape him into a half-embrace. He has this overwhelming urge to protect her, to keep her safe.  
  
“No,” she says quietly, agreeing. “No, my heart is beating in somebody else’s chest.”  
  
Her palms lay flat against where she knows both of his to be, and they’re drumming madly. She’s too close to him. They’re in a bookshop and the ceiling is disappearing, the poems of lost lovers ripping themselves to shreds, the bell chiming like a song. Sunlight flickers through the dusty air as if each particle is a burning star. She can feel every question he’s accumulated since forgetting her piling up on his tongue, his chest about to break.  
  
She tells him shakingly, “Go on.”  
  
“We were _together_ , weren’t we?” He asks immediately, enunciating the word, and somehow that isn’t the first thing she thought would come speeding out his mouth and it shocks her. She takes a step back, out of his arms. “I spent a long time combing through the holes. There are...too many moments alone, in my head. But I wasn’t alone, was I?”  
  
She wills herself not to cry. He’s rebuilding it, and she never tore it down. She answers unsteadily, wrapping her arms around herself, “No. No, you weren’t.”  
  
“And the first question?” He prods, eyes boring into her own. On her silence, he breaks and begs, “ _Please_ , Clara, I need to hear you say it--”  
  
“Yes,” she says, and _damn_ it, a tear spills over and drips down her cheek, falling from her chin. “We were together.”  
  
“After Christmas,” he continues, desperate for every detail. “Right? But I don’t know what--”  
  
“We had a dream,” she interrupts, realizing he won’t let this go, he won’t let anything remain unsaid for any longer. “I was old. I’d never been married. Because it only could’ve ever been you, and you were gone.”  
  
“In the dream.”  
  
“In the dream,” she clarifies. She holds her arms tighter against her body, trying to contain herself, like she’s about to break apart. “And we woke up and you...you asked me to leave with you, and it took about a week, but we - we fell into it. It just happened.”  
  
“How?” He asks. He’s moving nearer to her without noticing; he can’t stop himself from being close to her. Maybe the body remembers more than the mind does. They’ve been apart too long for there to be any space between them now.  
  
Her laugh is watery. She gestures around her and says, “We were in the library.” Everything comes back to that fucking library. “And I couldn’t stand it any longer. We’d already had enough bad timing. I couldn’t...lose you, again.”  
  
He cocks his head involuntarily. He studies her and says slowly, “You’ve said that to me before. Two of those things.”  
  
She stops. If she could still breathe, she would’ve caught her breath. She says, “How do you know that?”  
  
He smiles humourlessly. He answers, “I don’t - remember, exactly. It was a human-compatible neuroblock, so it wasn’t completely effective, meaning there are flashes - sort of like triggers, where I can _see_ it. I can see things you’ve said to me, like words on a chalkboard, or I can feel you...touching me.” He swallows. “My initial inquiry wasn’t unsolicited.” On her startled blush at his implication, he says quickly, “Not like _that,_ no, I didn’t...I meant, my hands. My neck, my chest. Pressure on places I’m not used to.”  
  
She senses the underlying structure to that sentence: it drives him absolutely mad - with grief, with desire, with all of it - to feel her ghost against him, the one thing he never, ever wanted. She has the sudden urge to _prove_ herself, to show him he’s not wrong, leaving no room for questioning or internal debate. She steps into him again - it doesn’t take much; he’s already so close - and she carefully assumes an intimate position, froth with familiarity, her hand on his neck, her other resting above one of his hearts. She always liked the rhythm. It--  
  
“--Comforts you.” He finishes her thought aloud. His arms wind around her in that same recognizable manner, as if it’s second nature to him, which it is - even if he doesn’t realize it. “Why?”  
  
“You’re alive,” she breathes out. “You’re alive, and as long as I could feel them beating, I knew you were safe.” His fingers spread against her back, holding her against him automatically. She says, “Tell me what you’re thinking.”  
  
“That this is _right,_ ” he murmurs. “That this is what I’ve been missing, all this time.”  
  
There’s no fire crackling, but the shelves are alight in flames anyway; the room is sinking in, the dimensions shrinking. The bell is a continuous ringing in her ears. Her fingertips press into the back of his neck. She wants to drag him down to her, cover his mouth with hers, bring him back where he belongs.  
  
His eyebrows furrow, like he’s trying to decipher a million things at once. He says, “I think that keeping you safe was the most important thing to me in the universe.”  
  
“You think?”  
  
“I know.” His voice is deadly certain. “I wouldn’t have done what I did if it wasn’t.”  
  
“And why was that so important?” She asks waveringly. Every question is a game of Russian Roulette. Will he, won’t he. Her eyes dart between his.  
  
He stills, understanding. He answers softly, “There was another reason.” He raises a hand to her face, palm against the line of her jaw, thumb under her cheekbone. This is it. “Do you want me to tell you?”  
  
She says, “Only if you mean it. I know you would’ve meant it then. But I need you to mean it now. I don’t want to hear--”  
  
 _\--‘Loved,’ past tense,_ is how her sentence would have ended; but he interrupts, and quite plainly says, “I love you.”  
  
It’s like he’s waited his entire life to tell her, the way the words tumble out of his mouth and his eyes burn; that’s where the stars are coming from, she thinks idly, this galaxy being built around them, it’s so distracting, the black hole dismantling all the space, the sun, melting.  
  
“How can you be sure?” She pries, and she’s never been so aware of the stillness inside her body. “You don’t remember. How can you--”  
  
“ _Clara,_ ” he says, and there’s that old impatience. He brushes a strand of hair behind her ear. Fuck, every single thing he does is a shadow of what they used to be. “I don’t need to remember to know I’m in love with you.” This should be hard for him to say, just as it always was, but instead it’s like he can’t convince her fast enough. “I knew I would’ve told you before the Raven. I remember myself and my thoughts, at least, that much. In the diner - it was too fresh, and I was so lost, so disoriented. The only thing I was certain of was that I’d almost destroyed the universe for a girl called Clara, and I thought I’d be able to sense it when I found her...you,” he explains. “But the moment I saw my TARDIS, I knew. And I confirmed it again the moment I saw you in the underground. Love,” he finishes, “is a promise.”  
  
“That’s enough,” she gasps out, and, standing on her toes, she crashes her lips against his. He leans unsteadily at her sudden weight, caught off-guard, but he cups her face in his hands and kisses her back just as fervently, and this, this, _this--_  
  
“I’ve missed you,” he says in-between. “Clara Oswald.”  
  
She buries her face against his coat, the velvet soft on her cheek. His arms are warm and solid around her, his hearts thumping frantically, overcome. It’s so nice just to be _held._  
  
His chin settles against the top of her head, and he hums contentedly. He says, “Well, aren’t you going to show me around?”  
  
She laughs and she doesn’t stop, and finally - _finally_ \- she’s home.  
  
\--  
  
Ashildr says to the boy, “I’d rather not intrude on them. Coffee?”  
  
He glances at her and shrugs. “Sure.”  
  
“Costa’s right there,” she points out. “Might as well.”  
  
He follows her wordlessly across the street; she eyes the side of his head again. “What are you, exactly? I can take a guess, but I didn’t think it was possible to this degree--”  
  
He smirks. “You’re clever,” he says. “You’re probably right.”  
  
“Failed cybernetic upgrade. The Doctor arrived in the nick of time?” She takes a stab. The Doctor’s not that hard to figure out.  
  
“Yeah.” He sounds mildly impressed. “Owed him my life, so--”  
  
“So you figured you’d keep him company.” She’s bored again. Everything is so predictable - everything except Clara, who is probably one of the only people in the universe she actually loves being around. Maybe. She can’t really remember. “A charming tale.”  
  
He laughs at her sarcasm. “Name’s CJ. And you - been around a little too long?” He asks, pegging her. He holds the door open for her as she enters the coffee shop.  
  
“Something like that,” she replies. “How did you know about us, anyway?”  
  
“The Doctor’s got pictures,” he answers, shifting weight between his feet as they stand in line. “Tons of _you_ .”  
  
She raises an eyebrow at the enunciation. “Just me?”  
  
He nods his head. “There’s only one of her that I’ve seen, but I know he has more,” he replies solemnly. “I...found it on accident. I found her room, actually, with all of her things still in it. It was a little - eerie, like I’d stepped foot into her last day alive.” His voice lowers. “He almost kicked me out, you know. For good. He made me swear I’d never go near it again. But I found a picture she had framed.”  
  
Ashildr smiles. It’s so like Clara to do something so simple and human. “Of the two of them.”  
  
He rubs the back of his head, and she realizes he’s probably picturing the photo now, considering his memory bank is hard-wired. He says, “Yeah,” and grimaces. “I think that’s the only reason he let me stay, actually. They looked...close.”  
  
She laughs. She can’t stop herself. “ _Close,_ ” she repeats. “I suppose that’s one word for it.”  
  
“She’s holding the front of his coat,” he explains, and Ashildr’s right, he _is_ looking at it in his head, “and smiling. He has a hand on her cheek. The other is in his pocket. Someone else took the picture and they didn’t realize - he said later they found out it was a catalogue of people on some kind of an interstellar hit-list, but she really liked the picture, so she kept it.”  
  
She snaps her fingers in front of his eyes. “We’re almost up,” she says. “He remembered that?”  
  
“No,” CJ answers. “He remembered, like, saying something about it, and just filled in the blanks.”  
  
The woman at the counter asks what they’d like; “Caramel latte,” Ashildr says, because it’s the only thing that comes to mind. “Those are still around, aren’t they?” She doesn’t know what time they’re in.  
  
The woman gives her a confused grin. “Sure are. They’re not seasonal.”  
  
Ashildr shrugs. Whatever. CJ says, “Hot chocolate,” and pays with something that _looks_ like an extremely fancy credit card, the kind very important and wealthy people own. The woman takes it, glancing between the two of them, wildly perplexed.  
  
“Thank you for your business, sir,” she says nervously, and CJ gives her a relaxing smile.  
  
They move to wait, and he turns back to Ashildr. He asks, “Why’d you say it like that?” He mimics, “‘ _Close._ ’ You got another word?”  
  
She laughs outright. “Only words you hear in conjunction to fairytales,” she answers. “Try _soulmates,_ or destined, fated; so on, and so forth.”  
  
“Soulmates aren’t real,” he says, and somehow the response surprises her. Usually people believe in that kind of romantic idealism.  
  
“For _us,_ ” she argues. “They’re not real for _normal_ people. But they’re not normal people. Come on. Didn’t you ever wonder why she wasn’t with him anymore? And why he can’t remember her?”  
  
“Well, sure,” he says. “But he doesn’t like to talk about it.”  
  
She snorts. “No, I imagine he wouldn’t,” she replies. “I doubt it’s nice to relive four and a half billion years inside your own personal torture chamber for the faintest hope of saving a girl you can’t even remember.”  
  
CJ stops entirely. He says disbelievingly, “ _What_ ?”  
  
“Clara isn’t alive,” Ashildr says. This story takes time, and she’s bored. Might as well. “She’s frozen in time, the split second before her death. The Time Lords are very clever,” she admits almost unwillingly. “They have the technology to do that type of thing, which, of course, the Doctor would know about. They trapped him in hell for a piece of information, and instead of giving it to them, he bargained with it. He broke onto Gallifrey after burning himself alive over and over for four and a half billion years to save her life.” She looks at him. His jaw is hanging open. She says, “You’re all cyber-y. Search your databanks. What do you know about the Hybrid?”  
  
“Legend,” he waves away immediately.  
  
“Not quite,” she says. “A prophecy. Every prophecy, actually, foretold it - standing in the ruins of Gallifrey, on the verge of destroying time and space, two great warrior races.” She pauses. “The Hybrid is _them_ . Together. And the reason she’s not traveling with him anymore is because one of them had to forget the other, or they would’ve destroyed the universe trying to keep the other alive.” She smiles almost cruelly, because it really is tragic, and there’s nothing anyone can do. “Sound a little like soulmates, or are you still having trouble swallowing the idea?”  
  
He stares at her, processing and downloading all the new information she’s just provided him. He says quietly, “Yeah. It does.” The barista calls his order and his fingers curl around the cup. “A harsher truth than most would like to think, but--” He stops. “I could always tell he loved her. But destroying the universe…”  
  
“Yeah,” Ashildr picks up, and grins cheekily. “I think we’re all better off without a soulmate if that’s the standard, don’t you?”    
  
\--  
  
They’re in the library and it’s exactly the same as it’s always been, for both of them.  
  
The Doctor whistles lowly, eyebrows raised, glancing around. He says, “I thought it was just a facade. The bookshop. But this is mine, and the console room...”  
  
Clara grimaces. “We’ve been trying to fix it for ages,” she explains. “We were that diner for the longest time, and now we’re stuck as this - including a free console room regeneration. We think we’ve too many books aboard, between our journals, and the TARDIS is under the impression we read more than we actually do.”  
  
“Telepathic connection points,” he says, offering some context. “She responds to your thoughts.” He pauses and says, “Maybe you...dwell on our time in the library a bit too much.”  
  
She won’t meet his eyes. “Maybe,” she answers vaguely, and changes the subject. “What’s yours like now?”  
  
“Similar,” he says, and shrugs. “More round things. More chalkboards. I can’t seem to get rid of them. I was baffled for a while, but - schoolteacher, right?”  
  
“Used to be, yeah,” she says, and it stings unexpectedly. It was so long ago.  
  
“I think,” he says quietly, “that my TARDIS misses you, too.”  
  
“You’ll make me cry again,” she says thickly. He steps towards her. They’ve stopped touching, for some reason, and he can’t fathom why. They’re together now. That’s the only thing that matters in the universe. Maybe that was the problem originally.  
  
There’s too much familiar now to what was then; the ceiling fades, covered in thick layers of grey. The books throw themselves from the shelves, their words shattering against the floor, breathing themselves into the air. The fire crackles. The fire is always crackling. At least there’s no dancing.  
  
He says, “ _Clara_ .” That’s all, just her name, but he’s retained that _damn_ tone, the one where he wraps his lips around the letters like they’re glass and he’s afraid of dropping them. He can’t get enough of her name. His fingers curl around her elbow.  
  
She asks unsteadily,”What?”  
  
He tugs at her. He says, “It’s been a long time.”  
  
“It has.”  
  
“I want to remember.” He tells her with finality. “I want to remember all of it.”  
  
And now is the moment for poetry: she should say, _oh, I’ll force you to remember, I’ll have your blood burning the way mine used to, I’ll have your hearts pounding in your bones until they break, I will ruin this world for you just how I did before, and you will spend eternity wanting me._ She doesn’t say any of it. She doesn’t need to. It’s the truth and all it would do is wreck him.  
  
She says, “You want to remember what, exactly?”  
  
“Things nobody else can tell me,” he says delicately. “We’ve been here before and I gave you the universe. What did you give me?”  
  
She turns into him; their bodies are close. Her chin is dropped and his eyes are staring straight through her, pulling her out of herself. She places her hands against his coat again. The gentle thrumming of his hearts calms her because she knows he’s still alive, and so she is alive, too. She whispers, “Me.” When she lifts her head, her mouth will be just in front of his own, hovering. “Please,” she breathes out without knowing what she’s begging for.  
  
He lifts his fingers underneath her jaw, tilting her chin up. There are stars being born in his eyes, planets, supernovas. The solar system orbits in his chest. He echoes, “ _Please_ .”  
  
So she kisses him, and, _oh_ \--  
  
Call it a paradigm shift.  
  
\--  
  
CJ asks, “So what happens now?”  
  
“Nothing,” Ashildr says quietly, fingers curved around her cup. “Nothing happens.”  
  
He’s taken aback, blinking in bewilderment. “But they’re--”  
  
“I know what they’re doing,” Ashildr says blithely. “I’m not an idiot. But they can’t be together.”  
  
“Why? If he doesn’t remember--”  
  
“It doesn’t _matter_ if he doesn’t remember,” she says impatiently, and he taps his cup against the table. “He’ll fall in love with her again because that’s who she is. And he’ll burn it all down again if the time ever came because that’s who _he_ is. And they’ll spend every second of their lives keeping each _other_ alive because that’s who _they_ are, and they don’t know how to exist without the other.”  
  
He says, “I don’t understand. They won’t learn?”  
  
“The universe doesn’t depend on their love,” she says. “It only depends on both of them existing at the same time, at the same speed, for the same length. It depends on them knowing the other is _out_ there.”  
  
He hums. He doesn’t need any more explanation. He says, “Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.”  
  
It’s so blase and simple. She laughs. The wind ruffles his hair; she blinks the sun out of her eyes. A couple walk past holding hands. How normal, she thinks, how boring. And how _beautiful._ How _perfect._  
  
She says, “You know, they should’ve been human. The two of them. Ordinary people with ordinary lives who have an extraordinary love. Instead of an extraordinary all three.”  
  
CJ says, “But then I guess there’d be no love stories, would there? No poems. No songs.”  
  
She thinks of everything Clara and the Doctor have done - the planets they’ve rescued, the galaxies they’ve saved, the people they’ve inspired - and realizes, maybe the hope for their kind of love is enough.  
  
\--  
  
They’re in her room and he doesn’t hesitate; he isn’t unsure, or nervous, or afraid. To him, he’s finally where he’s supposed to be, relearning what he already knows and has forgotten. He unbuttons her dress. She slips his coat over his shoulders. The library is probably burning down, somewhere.  
  
He says, “I don’t know how I could’ve forgotten this,” kissing her like he almost destroyed everything for her, like all of time and space is meaningless if she does not exist in it. She wasn’t the only one who lost her life on Trap Street that day. He lost his and did everything in his power to get it back.  
  
“Call it paradigm shift,” he says quietly. “Laws of attraction, quantum immortality, us and the universe.” His mouth is against the crook of her neck, the insides of her wrists, the dip in the middle of her chest, everywhere a pulse should be but isn’t. Her fingers link between his, their palms pressed tight, lifelines melting into a single infinite span.  
  
When they’re together like this, she thinks, maybe it’s possible that they’ll never truly end.  
  
He says after, “Please.” His lips cover hers, consuming, painful, desperate. She’s that constant ache, that unfillable void. “I can’t lose you again.”  
  
She says, “There are more important things.” She can see stars through her ceiling, the depth of space, spiral galaxies and nebulas. “You almost destroyed it all for me, once.”  
  
“I need to keep you safe.” The words are hard and unflinching. She is already taking up the empty space inside of him.  
  
She places his hand over where her heart is frozen, and hers covers his. The juxtaposition is fierce, startling, sad. His pound. Hers is silent; not a breath, not a flutter. “You are,” she says. “Why else would you have two?”  
  
The moment is too beautiful to be dismantled. He avoids pointing out the scientific explanation behind regeneration and higher-body functions. Instead, he murmurs, “Maybe that _is_ why.” It’s a thought from much earlier on. “I went back in time and engineered the Time Lords with two hearts, so one is always beating for you.”  
  
“Maybe,” she says, smiling. Maybe not, but it’s a nice idea, regardless.  
  
“People like me and you,” he starts, tracing the ridges of her spine, counting, memorizing every detail. “We get it right eventually, don’t we? We’ll find each other. That’s what we do.”  
  
She doesn’t respond immediately, but the idea sinks inside of her; leaving themselves to fate. It’s worked before; the right place at the right time, a solid step forward, a fight back. They’ve always been drawn together. She turns to him, and kisses him like she’s saying _yes, yes._ She is.  
  
The stars above flicker in a standing ovation, and time watches the way he touches her and thinks, _finally, you’ve done enough._  
  



End file.
